California's experiment with charter schools just got a substantial boost from reports that classroom-based charters were a third more likely to meet academic improvement goals last year than traditional public schools. And the newest charter schools are posting academic gains on par with the most experienced.

Although charter school advocates have long sung the praises of these quasi-independent public schools, finding acceptance in the mainstream has proven more elusive. That may be about to change.

"Charter schools have recently started to make impressive gains," said senior policy analyst Brian Edwards, who co-authored the report released today. "The data for 2004 is definitely promising, but one year does not yet make a trend."

That may sound like faint praise, but coming from EdSource -- a widely-respected, Palo Alto-based education policy group known for its clear and impartial analyses -- it's a coup.

"We follow the test scores, just like (traditional public) schools, but no one had looked at it in a nuanced enough way," said Caprice Young, president of the California Charter Schools Association and a recent appointee to the governor's new education committee. "We've been working so hard on quality over the last two years, and it's really working.

That focus on quality has emphasized five key areas, including student achievement, strong site leadership and mentoring between schools. If one school is struggling with English language learning programs, for example, they get help from more seasoned colleagues at other sites, she said.

"One of the most exciting things in this report is the finding that new schools are doing as well as old schools," Young said. "That's a direct result of mentoring."

EdSource was founded in 1977 by the California PTA, the American Association of University Women and the League of Women Voters to research and clarify complex education policy issues.

Funding comes from a variety of sources, including the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This particular research project received funding from longtime charter schools advocate Reed Hastings, chairman of Netflix and a former member of the state board of education.

The EdSource report is the latest in a series of often controversial national and state charter school studies. Last year's American Federation of Teachers charter report ignited a firestorm of dissent among researchers who faulted the study for its reliance on data gleaned from a single test event and its use of isolated student demographics, for example. A 2004 Harvard study also came under fire for its demographic controls.

But every researcher has grappled with the problem of comparing apples to apples in a field where charter and traditional public school populations range from the dozens to the thousands, with vast disparities in race, resources and English language fluency.

"(Charter schools) are innovative, which generally means they're not apples or oranges," said Young. "They're grapes and papayas."

Instead of comparing straight test scores, Edwards and his team focused on academic improvement goals, which are set by the state. These incremental improvements are designed to propel schools over the 800-point mark on the 1,000-point Academic Performance Index.

That 800 mark hovers tantalizingly close for Manzanita Charter School, West Contra Costa's top-ranked middle school, with a 738 API rank. Manzanita students need a 3-point increase to meet this year's state goal.

Vallejo's Mare Island Technology Academy, which recently won California Department of Education honors as one of 12 exemplary vocational education programs in the state, will need to boost its current 673 API rank by six points.

The odds are good, according to the EdSource report. Some 64 percent of classroom-based charters -- as opposed to those that cater to homeschool or independent study students -- met state-set improvement goals as opposed to 48 percent of traditional public schools. Just 44 percent of homeschool/independent study charters met their goals.

"On these particular measures, they tended to not do as well, but that's not to say these aren't good schools," said Edwards. "We're not going for histrionics. We tried to say upfront, 'Here are some caveats.'"

But a quarter of California's charter schools lack Academic Performance Index data, and nearly half the homeschool and independent study charters failed to test enough children to generate state API reports at all. The scarce data made comparisons difficult.

But as with public schools, there were glorious success stories and failures, too. Instead of a political "lightning rod," said Edwards, charter schools should be viewed as "laboratories of school improvement" and an untapped resource in the battle for education reform.

Reach Jackie Burrell at 925-977-8568 or jburrell@cctimes.com.

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